There he was sitting on a lecture he didn't want to attend with bots he didn't want to know. Well it was better than what was waiting at home. To be honest he had no idea what he wanted right now. Everything was a huge chaos to him, which he just happened to be part of.

"Ironhide?! Are you paying any attention on what's going on," a firm voice demanded.

"Yeah, yeah," he replied and pretended to pay attention for a while.

It wasn't like Ironhide didn't want to learn, actually it was the other way around. Ironhide was intelligent, being precise practically intelligent, but he did lack the motivation due the state his life was at the moment. The red youngling's both creators were missing leaving him all alone.

His custody had been given to a mech who was supposed to be somehow related to his mother. Ironhide had never even met the mech before Ironhide's custody had been given to him. One day the red youngling just had been taken from the orphanage, shoved to the bot and dragged to the Iacon's slums.

Ironhide didn't like going to school, because all the other bots had goals in their lives and he on the other hand had no idea where he was heading. He felt so different among them. While Ironhide had his cheap red paint job - the others had cool multi colored custom paints. He lived in the slums – the others lived in the central Iacon. The red youngling felt like a rust bucket in a clean med bay, that just being there was somehow wrong.

"We have a new student here. He's name is name is Ratchet and he's going to be part of this group now on."

Ironhide turned his optics on the new comer. 'What the slag?' he thought. The new comer had the exactly same built as Ironhide had, except for the head and the coloring.

The white youngling was seated next to the red youngling. He took a quick eye contact with Ratchet revealing a bit shocked expression which quickly turned into smile. Ironhide never expected anyone to smile at him, so he was left a bit nervous.

Ironhide kept eyeing at the new comer now and then. The other youngling was so concentrated on the teaching that you could think that his life depended on it. Ironhide could almost hear the information processing of the other one. It struck at him as very odd, but he tried disregarding it.

Finally the lesson was over and break started. Ironhide didn't move from his place, because he really didn't want to socialize with the other bots and neither did they want to socialize with him. The breaks were the worst for him, when everybody was talking about silly things they did during their free time. Ironhide didn't do any funny or silly things during his free time, because when he had free time, he just tried to survive it to see the next day.

Besides even though nobody ever said it, the red youngling knew that the other ones loathed him. He could see it from their eyes and non-verbal signs that they were sending all the time. He wasn't a fool. They just didn't dare to say that they thought the slumbots were scum, because Ironhide was bigger than most of the bots making him appear quite intimidating if provoked.

The new comer wasn't very intimidating on his white coloring. The other bots gathered around Ratchet to ask everything between sky and ground from him. Ironhide could see how the other one was answering the questions with a smile on his face, which made the red youngling a bit envious; it hadn't been so long time ago when he was able to do the same.

The new comer was probably one of those high class bots. At least the paint job was screaming "I'm better than any of you, so I can use all white, because I never get myself dirty." It angered Ironhide that the bot just had to have the same built as him. Primus was obviously kicking him some more to the head.

The red youngling was very annoyed, which could easily be read from his expression. He wasn't exactly doing a very good job at hiding his emotions. Ironhide just wanted to remove the annoying factor from the equation, but there was nothing he could do.

Ironhide hid his helm to his arms and bent over his desk. He spent the rest of the day in that position. The time seemed to crawl like it always did to him and this day wasn't an exception. He wished it to end, while at the same time he wished it not to end. Everything was chaos and nothing made sense.

Finally when the lessons were over Ironhide headed his way to the 3rd district, better known as the slums. He didn't hurry, but he didn't go slow either since he didn't want to be beaten up by some slum gang. He also noticed along the way that the new comer Ratchet was stalking him.

This was very irritating. Why did the bot have to rub it into his face? Wasn't it enough to make him feel like a complete slag at school. The white bot kept following Ironhide small distance from him. The red youngling couldn't understand why the other one was following, he hadn't done anything to him.

Finally Ironhide just couldn't keep it to himself. He stopped and turned around.

"Why in the pit are you following me", Ironhide yelled.

The other one stopped while looking confused. Something was wrong here Ironhide thought to himself. The red youngling had waited for some insults to be traded, but instead of insults he got something very else.

"I'm not following you. I'm heading myself to home, which is here in the 3rd district," the other one answered.

Ironhide wanted to smack himself, because he was feeling so stupid at the moment. He had completely misjudged the other one without any evidence. He had just cooked some stupid scenarios in his own mind. Maybe it wasn't late to correct the situation, though he would understand if the other youngling thought he was a complete idiot.

"I thought I was the only youngling living in there," he wondered.

"We just moved in. Didn't want to miss any lectures," the other youngling answered. The white youngling closed the distance between them.

"Why did you move in here? Nobody moves in here – Everybody just tries wants to get out," Ironhide asked.

"It's not so simple," the other youngling whispered as a response.

A silence fell between them. Ironhide knew better than that to not stick his fingers where they did not belong. Though he could figure out just fine that there was something going on behind the scenes the other youngling just wasn't showing.

"Ratchet? That's your name, right?"

"Umh, yeah. Yours?"

"Ironhide. Want to walk along?"

"Sure."

Ironhide could hear a bit of happiness in the response. It made him smile inside, because it meant that he hadn't completely ticked of the other youngling. Maybe this could work out fine after all.

"I'm sorry about earlier," Ironhide apologized.

"I don't mind," Ratchet smiled and continued: "You don't sound like an Iacon bot, you know. I mean the way you talk."

"My creators weren't from Iacon," he answered.

"Weren't," Ratchet quoted and asked: "Where are they now?"

"I don't know. I'm living with my uncle," Ironhide replied a bit irritated.

Silence fell between them, since both of them realized that the other one was hiding something, but obviously not going to tell. They both had their reasons for living in the slums, which actually gave some light to Ironhide. He was feeling like he could actually relate to someone for a really long time.

Ratchet stopped in front of an old block. The building looked inhabitable, but so did all the other buildings on the area. The paint was scrapped and there were cracks here and there on the surface. It wasn't very far away from Ironhide's home.

"This is it. See you tomorrow," Ratchet announced casually and smiled to Ironhide.

"Yeah. See you," Ironhide answered while watching Ratchet approaching to door leading to the building. The other bot quickly disappeared into the building. He was now alone. He decided that he wouldn't go back home just yet and just loitered around doing nothing in particular.

When he was about to go back home, he heard a cry coming from the building Ratchet had entered earlier. He dashed to the place where he had departed with him, just to see from a window bend up form of the white youngling.

"My hands! It hurts!"

"I'm so-sorry darling. I didn't mean to."

'What the slag was that,' he found himself wondering. There was something nasty going on with the domestic life of the other youngling. He didn't want to say the word even to himself, because it would be the same as admitting his own circumstances.

Speaking about the circumstances he realized it was better for him to get back to his home before some slum gang came and beat him to deactivation. He started unwillingly heading back to his home, which was just another block away from Ratchet's home.